This is one of my favorite Halloween movies. It just so clearly had so much work put into it. It's also stylistically one of the most beautiful movies ever, certainly the best stop-motion I've ever seen.
The overall story however is fairly simple. A spoiler alert is in place because I'm going to discuss the whole plot. I think it's kind of ridiculous to say there's a spoiler alert for such an old movie so I might not do that in the future. Anyway the story is that Jack Skelington is more or less the king of Halloween Town and he's become so good at creating Halloween that he's basically reached a peak. He thus goes into a deep depression and wanders one evening into this beautiful Christmas land and it blows him away. The musical sequence of "What's this" is one of the best in the film. He returns to Halloween town to tell everyone about it but no one really shares his enthusiasm and he wonders what to do. He then has a eureka moment where he will put on Christmas this year. He goes through with it and it turns out to be a disaster. He even kidnaps Santa Clause from Christmas Town so that he doesn't interfere. The outcome is that Santa Clause is eventually released, Jack is sorry for what happened, and everything is made well. Jack returns to his normal life (there's also a romantic subplot where Jack finally gets together with the heroine of the film).
The part that struck me this time while watching it was that I think there's a deeper metaphor in this film than the film writers intended. When Jack is depressed in the beginning, he is given this absolutely wonderful grace that helps to get him out of his depression instantly. God constantly is working in this way. There's so much beauty and joy and love in this world that it's actually pretty hard to stay depressed for too long (for me at least I find this is true. I'm not counting clinical depression, etc). However, once we receive this great grace, the proper response should be to be thankful for it. Jack does not do this but rather grasps at the grace and wants it for his own. Instead of the grace as a gift, Jack makes it an object which he can steal and keep. This is the same concept that leads to addiction in all of its forms. There are great pleasures in this life, but they are meant to be as icons of what we will have in heaven when we will be fully present with God. When we seek the pleasure on its own, that's where things can go bad. We become constantly seeking the pleasure and grabbing at it rather than being in the position of open reception to God and thankful for his gifts and his will. The model of this openness is of course, Mary. Her willingness to say, "Let it be done unto me according to your will" is the ultimate openness to God's will.
Happy All Hallow's Eve and All Saint's Day everyone!
*Disclaimer - there are scenes in this movie that portray witches in a positive light and other occult references so I cannot give it a full endorsement. It also does a superficial job of covering Christmas town with no reference to Jesus, etc. I'd recommend reading this review by a well known and respected Catholic film critic before watching with your family.
